Specifications

FIGURE 1.3

PHP’s date() function returns a formatted date string.

Calling Functions

Look at the call to date(). This is the general form that function calls take. PHP has an exten-

sive library of functions you can use when developing Web applications. Most of these func-

tions need to have some data passed to them and return some data.

Look at the function call:

date(“H:i, jS F”)

Notice that we are passing a string (text data) to the function inside a pair of parentheses. This

is called the function’s argument or parameter. These arguments are the input used by the func-

tion to output some specific results.

The date() Function

The date() function expects the argument you pass it to be a format string, representing the

style of output you would like. Each of the letters in the string represents one part of the date

and time. H is the hour in a twenty-hour hour format, i is the minutes with a leading zero

where required, j is the day of the month without a leading zero, S represents the ordinal suffix

(in this case

“th”), and F is the year in four digit format.

(For a full list of formats supported by

date(), see Chapter 18, “Managing the Date and

Time.”)

Using PHP

ART I

03 7842 CH01 3/6/01 3:39 PM Page 18